Tag: metal

Like most ‘geeks’ and ‘tech heads’ I have a sizeable graveyard of 3.5″ and 2.5″ IDE and SATA hard drives that I’d stripped out of decommissioned computers, laptops, Sky+ boxes etc

The larger spare SATA drives are soon to be put to good use in my new DROBO S which I just received and will review shortly but the older IDE drives were the ones that were really mounting up and beginning to gather dust.

I have a generic IDE/SATA to USB adapter for testing the drives and securely erasing them but it’s a clunky bit of kit that lives in a drawer by my desk. I decided the smaller form factor 2.5″ IDE drives taken out of old laptops would be handy in an enclosure to add to my portable USB drive collection. I already have 3 USB Freecom Toughdrive(320GB, 500GB and 750GB) which in my opinion are the best portable drive that size, they don’t require power but most important for me is they have nicely integrated USB cables.

So I don’t need a fancy enclosure for these old 2.5″ IDE drives, one 40GB and one 60GB, they’re just going to be spares so I set about finding the cheapest 2.5″ enclosures that I could on eBay and came up with a winner.

These Pluscom 2.5″ USB 2.0 Aluminium enclosures couldn’t get much cheaper at £3.80 including delivery! I opted for one silver and one red just so I can tell them apart easily. I ordered them from the same seller and both were delivered the next day and I am pleasantly surprised with them.